It's unusual, not to say a probable breach of takeover panel rules, to make offhand remarks on what price a company would accept from a bidder, in the middle of an offer period.

So eyebrows have been raised this morning by comments attributed to Cadbury chief executive Todd Stitzer suggesting his company would consider 15 times earnings - that's 900p a share according to the number crunchers - as a fair offer from Kraft. At the moment Kraft has 718p on the table, and the tale has pushed Cadbury 2p higher at 790.5p.

According to a sales note from Merrill Lynch, Stitzer made the remarks yesterday, at the start of a two day conference in London organised by the bank. Both Stitzer and Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft were holding forth to investors, separately one must assume.

Apparently Stitzer also said Kraft's plans for $625m of synergies were modest, and he did not expect the predator to just walk away. As for Kraft, Rosenfeld reportedly said Cadbury was a compelling opportunity, but not at any price.

Cadbury itself now seems to be scurrying around trying to get to the bottom of all this, but a source maintained Stitzer had not commented on the Kraft bid specifically. He merely said previous transactions in the sector had gone through at a multiple in the mid-teens.

Apparently some sort of clarification may come later today.

But even if the 900p figure proves to be merely an extrapolation of Stitzer's comments, it still amounts to the price many analysts believe Kraft will have to offer to win the day.